古风短评：中国已成拉动全球贸易增长的火车头

【古风按】随着中国国力的进一步增强，中国在进口的能力上也开始大幅超越美欧日的总合，这使得西方列强企图把中国排除在外的任何新的国际贸易保护主义的努力全都成为了无用功：一则、美国苦心经营的TPP（跨太平洋伙伴关系协议）几乎肯定要泡汤了，二来、TTIP（跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴协议）也顺便跟着悬了。国际政治的现实的确是很残酷的哟，一个失去了购买力的美国一旦不能给其贸易伙伴们继续提供大的消费市场，就会很快被下面的小弟兄们所唾弃，美国黑老大离退位的日子也就不远了。

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http://opinion.m4.cn/2014-04/1228846.shtml

中国已成拉动全球贸易增长的火车头
罗思义  四月网  2014-04-18

中国已超越美国成为世界最大商品贸易国。事实上，自国际金融危机爆发以来，中国贸易总额增速就一直高于美国、欧盟和日本贸易总额增速之和。

即使欧美日去年从“大衰退”的低谷中有所恢复，中国贸易总额增速也高于其他经济中心。特别是，中国的进口总额增速仍然高于美国、欧盟和日本进口总额增速的总和——这对于其他经济体而言具有重要意义。

中国成为拉动全球贸易增长的最大火车头这一变化，对其他国家的贸易战略和正在进行的诸如《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》（RCEP）和《跨太平洋伙伴关系协议》（TPP）等贸易谈判，将带来重大影响。

下图所示的是自国际金融危机爆发以来发生的全球贸易规模变化情况，反映了中国、美国、欧盟和日本自金融危机爆发之前一年即2007年至2013年年底间的贸易总额增长变化。

自2007-2013年间，中国商品贸易总额增长1.986万亿美元，其中出口总额增长9920亿美元，进口总额增长9940亿美元。相比之下，同期美国商品贸易总额增长7410亿美元，欧盟为1.024万亿美元，日本则为2140亿美元。

因而，中国贸易总额增速不仅比其他主要经济中心快近两倍，而且比美国、欧盟和日本贸易总额之和的1.979万亿美元还要高。

仅将中国与美国作双边比较，对正在进行的贸易谈判非常重要。中国2007年商品贸易总额为2.2万亿美元，仅相当于美国商品贸易总额的69%；到2013年，中国商品贸易总额则高出美国商品贸易总额7%：中国为4.2万亿美元，美国为3.9万亿美元。在这六年间，中国贸易总额增长近2.0万亿美元，相比之下，美国贸易总额则仅增长0.7万亿美元——中国贸易总额增速是美国的近三倍。

进口贸易的变化则更大。中国2013年商品进口总额较2007年水平增长9930亿美元，同期美国进口总额增长3110亿美元，欧盟为3290亿美元，日本则为2120亿美元。中国商品进口总额增速是美国的3倍多，高于美国、欧盟和日本商品进口总额之和。因而，对其他国家来说，中国是他们增长最快的出口市场。

这一进口形势自大衰退以来没有发生变化。如下图所示，经合组织数据表明，中国去年进口总额增长1320亿美元，相比之下，欧盟进口总额增长300亿美元，美国和日本的进口总额则分别下降80亿美元和530亿美元。中国去年进口总额增速是欧盟的4倍，与此同时美国和日本的进口市场则下滑了。

这种趋势显然会对全球贸易和正在进行的贸易谈判产生深远影响。

首先，美国最近又拿人民币汇率问题说事显然是毫无道理的。4月8日，《金融时报》在其发表的题为“美国就人民币贬值对中国发出警告”的文章中，报道了美国财政部一位高级官员的内部吹风。据报道，人民币已较今年早前峰值水平贬值2.5%——这轮相对小的调整，很明显旨在防范继续押注人民币单边升值的投机分子，而且人民币已较2005年水平升值33.5%。尽管如此，这名未具姓名的美国官员仍声称，如果人民币没有“调整”的迹象会引发“严重关切”。所谓“调整”很明显是要人民币升值的代名词。但贸易数据显示，中国是其他国家最具活力的出口市场，美国去年则几乎无所贡献。

中国已是其他国家扩张最快的出口市场，与此同时，美国进口市场还未恢复至危机前水平，这显然会影响中国和印度、日本、韩国、澳大利亚及东盟正推进的亚洲《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》与美国正推进的将中国排除在外的《跨太平洋伙伴关系协议》的进度。

遗憾的是，美国目前的政策已违背了其此前支持全球贸易多边开放的承诺。相反，正如《金融时报》专栏作者菲利普·斯蒂芬斯指出的：“中国已成为开放全球经济的最大赢家……美国新提出的每项协议则是想把中国撇在一边。排除世界第二大经济体绝不仅仅是一个巧合。”

美国承认，重启类似于1929年后那样的国家规模贸易保护主义，将会引发灾难性后果，包括伤及其自身，但在开放、竟争的世界经济环境下，正在输给中国。因而，美国正试图创建能限制中国的、由美国主导的大贸易集团，而非真正的全球多边经济体制。

但这将会面临许多困难。首先，美国不敢冒致全球贸易体系解体的巨大风险——因而，贸易保护主义必须要控制在有限的范围内；其次，美国并不是具有活力的进口市场。

任何国家想进入由美国主导的贸易集团，就会不利自身与中国的关系，因而等于是进入了一个发展相对停滞不前的全球贸易区域。尽管美国会政治施压一些国家加入，但参与国家的数量一定会是有限的。毕竟有多少国家会愿意与一个相对停滞不前的贸易伙伴如美国合作，而冒与更具活力的中国关系不利的代价呢？

国际贸易现状是与国内政治考虑密切相关的。因为制成品的全球关税已普遍较低，美国的目的是在其经济优势特别强，但全球关税和其他障碍仍相当高的领域进行谈判以获益。其最重要的两个行业就是农业和服务业。然而，这两个行业在许多国家都是特别敏感的领域。例如，日本的农村地区是自民党的关键票仓，这也是日本农业贸易政策贸易保护主义色彩依旧很浓的关键原因。因此，日本与澳大利亚新签订的贸易协定在废除农业贸易壁垒方面并没有达到美国所希冀的程度。

美国自身也存在显著的阻力，尤其是民主党内，反对在制造业和发展中经济体保持竞争优势的其他行业作出贸易让步。因而，美国很难提出有价值的建议让其他国家值得向美国进一步开放其经济，尤其是农业和服务业，并承受由此带来的国内政治问题。

鉴于实际的世界贸易动态，中国提议的广泛的贸易自由化协议，例如《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》，比美国目前提议的贸易保护主义协议《跨太平洋伙伴关系协议》更有利于其他国家的经济发展。

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http://ablog.typepad.com/keytrendsinglobalisation/2014/04/china-is-now-the-worlds-trade-locomotive.html

China is now the world's main trade locomotive
by John Ross,  12 April 2014

China has overtaken the United States to become the world's largest goods trading nation. Indeed, since the beginning of the international financial crisis, increases in China's merchandise trade have been larger than those of the United States, EU and Japan combined.

Even last year, well after recovery from the trough of the "Great Recession," China's trade increase was bigger than that of any other economic centre. In particular China's increase in imports remained larger than the combined total of the United States, EU and Japan - a key issue for other economies.

This change in global trade has major implications for other countries' trade strategies and for ongoing trade negotiations such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The scale of the changes in global trade that have taken place since the beginning of the international financial crisis is shown in Figure 1. This illustrates the increases in the total trade of China, the United States, the EU and Japan between 2007, the last year before the crisis, and the end of 2013.

China's total merchandise trade in 2013 was $1,986 billion larger than in 2007 - China's exports having increased by $992 billion and imports by $994 billion. In comparison, the increase in the US goods trade was $741 billion, the EU $1,024 billion, and Japan $214 billion.

Therefore, not only was the expansion of China's trade almost twice that of any other major economic centre, but it was larger than the $1,979 billion for the United States, the EU and Japan put together.

Figure 1

Taking just a bilateral comparison with the United States, which is important for ongoing trade negotiations, in 2007 China's $2.2 trillion total merchandise trade was only 69 per cent of the United States. By 2013 China's merchandise trade, at $4.2 trillion, was 7 per cent bigger than the United States' $3.9 trillion. In six years China's trade increased by almost $2.0 trillion, compared to a US increase of $0.7 trillion - China's trade grew almost three times as much as the United States.

The change was even more dramatic for imports. In 2013 China's goods imports were $993 billion above their 2007 level, whereas US imports were up by $311 billion, the EU's by $329 billion, and Japan's by $212 billion. China's imports rose by more than three times as much as the United States - and by more than the United States, EU and Japan combined. China was therefore, by a huge margin, the most rapidly expanding market for other countries' exports.

Nor has this import situation altered since the Great Recession. Figure 2 shows that OECD data confirm that last year China's imports rose by $132 billion, compared to a rise of $30 billion for the EU - and falls of $8 billion for the US and $53 billion for Japan. China's imports rose four times as much as the EU, while the United States and Japan were declining import markets.

Figure 2

Such trends clearly have major implications for world commerce and ongoing trade negotiations.

First, the attempt by the United States to re-raise the question of the RMB's exchange rate was unfounded. On April 8, under a headline "US warns China after renminbi depreciation," the Financial Times carried an off-the-record briefing by a "senior [US] Treasury official." This reported a 2.5 per cent depreciation of the RMB since its peak earlier this year - a relatively small adjustment, clearly primarily aimed at preventing speculators having a continuous one way bet, and leaving the RMB 33.5 per cent above its 2005 level. Despite this, the unnamed US official declared "serious concerns" if the RMB did not show "adjustment" - apparent code for allowing its exchange rate to go up. But the trade data show China has been the world's most dynamic market for other countries' exports, while last year the United States made no contribution.

That China is the world's most rapidly expanding market for other countries exports, while US import markets have not regained pre-crisis levels, clearly affects China's promotion of an Asian RCEP, including India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and ASEAN, and the United States promoting a TPP excluding China.

Regrettably, current US policy has moved away from supporting a multilateral opening of the world economy. Instead, as Philip Stephens of the Financial Times noted accurately:

"China has been the big winner from the open global economy… each of the proposed new [US] agreements would leave China on the sidelines. The exclusion of the world's second-biggest economy is more than a coincidence."

The United States recognizes that a relapse into national scale protectionism, of the post-1929 type, would have dangerous consequences, including for itself, but it has been losing to China’s competition in an open world economy. A way to attempt to limit China is, therefore, to create large trade blocs including the United States rather than a truly multilateral global economy.

But this faces many difficulties. First, US policy dares not risk serious disintegration of world trade - therefore protectionism must be limited in scope. Second, the US is not today a dynamic import market.

Any country tying itself into a trade bloc with the US, to the disadvantage of relations with China, is therefore entering a grouping the centre of which is relatively stagnant in trade terms. Despite political pressure to join, there are definite limits to how much other economies are willing to enter blocs with relatively stagnant trading partners, such as the United States, at the expense of more dynamic ones such as China.

These international trade realities interrelate with domestic political considerations. As global tariffs on manufactured goods are in general already low, the necessary aim of the US is to negotiate advantages in areas where its economy is particularly strong but where international tariffs and other barriers are still significant. Two of the most important of such sectors are agriculture and services. But these are areas of particular sensitivity in numerous countries. For example, in Japan rural areas are the key electoral base of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and this is a key reason protectionism has been maintained in Japan's agricultural trade policy. As the Financial Times noted, Japan's newly signed trade agreement with Australia therefore did not dismantle agricultural trade barriers to the extent the United States wants.

In the United States itself there is significant resistance, particularly in the Democratic Party, to trade concessions in manufacturing and other sectors where developing economies hold competitive advantages. It is therefore difficult for the US to offer proposals making it worthwhile for other countries to accept the domestic political problems that would be created by further opening their economies to the United States in agriculture and services.

Given actual world trade dynamics, China's proposals for widespread trade liberalisation, such as the RCEP, will be more beneficial for other countries' economies than current US protectionist proposals for the TPP. This will undoubtedly influence the course of trade negotiations.

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